Cabiria
About Cabiria
When Mount Etna erupts, servants flee Catania with the child Cabiria and are seized by Phoenician pirates, who sell her in Carthage to the priest Karthalo for sacrifice to Moloch. The Roman spy Fulvius Axilla and his slave Maciste pull her from the temple; her nurse Croessa dies in the escape, and Cabiria is left with Hasdrubal's daughter Sophonisba while Maciste is chained to a millstone. The story crosses Hannibal's march, Archimedes burning the Roman fleet at Syracuse, and the war between Rome, Syphax, and Massinissa. Years later Fulvius frees Maciste and Cabiria, Sophonisba poisons herself at Cirta, and Fulvius takes Cabiria toward Rome.
Cast & crew
More about Cabiria
Giovanni Pastrone produced and directed for Itala Film in Turin, taking the directing credit Piero Fosco. Sets were built in the studio in 1913, with exteriors in Tunisia, Sicily, and the Alps. Gabriele D'Annunzio wrote the intertitles and named the characters. The picture opened on April 18, 1914, at the Teatro Vittorio Emanuele in Turin.
Themes
In film history
D. W. Griffith saw Cabiria before making Intolerance (1916). Moving-camera shots in the palace sets were later called Cabiria shots.
Making
Pastrone drew on Livy, Flaubert's Salammbô, and Emilio Salgari's Cartagine in fiamme. Segundo de Chomón handled special effects, including the eruption and the temple furnace.
Reviews
Martin Scorsese, introducing the 2006 restoration, credited Pastrone with the epic film and with a moving camera often assigned to Griffith and DeMille.
Look
Segundo de Chomón, Eugenio Bava, Augusto Battagliotti, Natale Chiusano, Carlo Franzeri, and Giovanni Tomatis photographed it. The camera rode a dolly through the Carthage sets.
Technique
The Moloch temple is a giant head with a working furnace. The Etna eruption and Archimedes' mirrors were built as special effects rather than location disasters.
Music
Manlio Mazza compiled the premiere score, drawing on existing operatic music, and conducted Pizzetti's original Sinfonia del fuoco for the sacrifice.
Preservation
No complete 1914 camera negative is known. In 2006 the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in Turin, with PresTech Film Laboratories in London, reconstructed a version of about 180 minutes. It was shown at Cannes on May 27, 2006.
Notes
- Bartolomeo Pagano's Maciste, a Roman slave, is the first appearance of a character who then headlined his own Italian films.
- In June 1914 Cabiria was shown on the White House south lawn for President Wilson and the cabinet; The Birth of a Nation was later the first film shown inside the White House.
- Ildebrando Pizzetti's Sinfonia del fuoco, written for the Moloch scene, was played at the Turin premiere under Manlio Mazza and then left unperformed until 1988.
- Lidia Quaranta plays Cabiria as a young woman, Carolina Catena the child, Umberto Mozzato plays Fulvius, and Italia Almirante Manzini plays Sophonisba.
- The Museo Nazionale del Cinema also restored a 1931 version, shown in Turin on March 21, 2006.
Scenes
- Etna erupts over Batto's villa and pirates take Cabiria.
- Children are fed to the furnace inside the bronze Moloch.
- Archimedes' mirrors set the Roman ships on fire at Syracuse.
- Sophonisba drinks poison as Cirta falls.
Influenced by
- Livy's Ab Urbe Condita
- Gustave Flaubert's Salammbô
- Emilio Salgari's Cartagine in fiamme
- Quo Vadis? (1913)
Influenced
- Intolerance (1916)
Also available
- Internet Archive (Cabiria)
